The saga of the proposed library closures, according to the University, is all about money. According to all the CAI users I know, it’s about devaluing the needs of CAI students and staff. It’s about destroying hubs of learning and community. And if you ask me, it’s about finding scapegoats, like accessibility, to try to assuage the consciences of those recommending the demolition.

As I absorbed Forbes’words, it hit home to me as it hadn’t quite before, that believing in the value of intersectionality and actually internalising it to the point where we regularly seek out—and follow through on—ways to put it into practice, are two distinct stages. And despite all of the goodwill in the world, getting from the first to the second and then staying there requires more conscious forethought, introspection and regular evaluation than would ever spring automatically from tacit agreement with the notion.

I’ll be the first to openly admit that I could have prioritised my own education on te ao Māori far more than I have, and that I am guilty in that regard. I take responsibility for that and I’m not proud of it. But I wish our systems of education, which must also extend beyond formal institutes of learning, might come to the table with this understanding too

Thanks to my socioeconomic privilege, it is unlikely (not to say impossible) that I will ever end up as dependent on our corrupt welfare system as Metiria once was. And I don’t pretend to know exactly how that dependency felt for Metiria, because I can’t know. Maybe I can’t know, but I can guess. Because I can guess, I can empathise with her.

Today, on May 29 2017, I am peacefully occupying the Vice Chancellor’s wing of the University of Auckland with 13 fellow activists. We are demanding that our Vice Chancellor Prof. Stuart McCutcheon actively support divestment from coal, oil and gas extraction.

While communities are being torn asunder as I write by human-caused violence, such as we’re witnessing in Aleppo, Turkey and Egypt, I want to devote this post to honouring a snapshot of three communities that are being built around music in New Zealand.

The US is facing at least two major problems at the moment. One is that Donald Trump doesn’t care about the fact that he has persistently been blatantly disrespectful to Muslims, immigrants, the LGBTIQ community, women, people with disabilities, and other minority groups.

If you want to tell the University of Auckland that the real fight is supposed to be to save the planet we love, instead of being a war on procrastination, please do. After all, it’s supposed to be a fight for all our futures.

Right now, the government are consulting on a raft of changes that deregulate the taxi industry. They’re selling them as a simplification of the rules which will be a win-win for passenger safety as well as emerging technologies. I am not convinced.